


The two prisoners

by persephx



Series: glimbow week 2020 [5]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: (kinda), Alternate Universe, F/M, Glimbow Centric, Horde Glimmer (She-Ra), Swapped Roles, and i really don't know what else to tag this with so bai, bad glimmer, kidnapped bow, oh yeah, prisoner bow, there is no violence though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 06:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26468848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephx/pseuds/persephx
Summary: Catra brings two prisoners to the Fright Zone, one of them manages to get under Glimmer's skin, she doesn't know why.
Relationships: Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: glimbow week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909954
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: Glimbow Week 2020





	The two prisoners

**Author's Note:**

> I struggled a lot with tenses in this because I wrote it at 2am and I have revised it, so it should be fine, but I'm sorry if you find present tenses when they don't make sense!
> 
> -
> 
> fic for the prompt of Glimbow Role Swap/Horde Glimmer of the 2020 glimbow week :) -- this one is a bit late, sorry about that!

It had been a boring day in the Horde. Or better, it had been a boring day for Glimmer’s squadron. She’d heard that Catra’s had gone on to search for Adora, to bring her back and get some sense back to her, but she wasn’t a part of it, different squadrons and all that. She didn’t even know Adora that much. She couldn’t say she liked her a lot. Shadow Weaver’s favorite, the _best_ of the Horde… She casted a big shadow, and not only over the people in her squadron. It was tiring to be held to a standard that seemed so unreachable. And that was for her, she couldn’t imagine how Catra felt.

So, yes, it had been a slow day, but as she saw the ship get closer to the Fright Zone, she had the feeling that said boredom was about to be extinguished. When she saw the unknown etherians coming out from the ship, escorted by Catra and Scorpia, she was proven right. She frowned. It didn’t take long for her to recognize them: the boy with the bow and the flower princess. Glimmer didn’t know their names yet, but she was sure she’d get bored of hearing them. There were never new people in the Fright Zone, and the fact that they were prisoners only made them more exciting. Everyone was going to be talking about them.

She hadn’t known the operation that Catra was leading was a hostage situation, and it worried her that she didn’t know how it was going to go. Catra was… smart, yes, and capable, but she had proven herself to not be better than Adora. If anything, she had showed how she had a soft side for her old friend. Glimmer couldn’t imagine that being a good thing.

The archer boy looked around and his eyes found Glimmer’s. Surprise overcame her when he frowned and didn’t look away. She raised her chin, the image of a proud Horde soldier, and held his gaze.

“Glimmer!” someone called her attention. She looked back to see Octavia holding a stack of papers. Right. She had her own role in The Horde.

She gave the group one last look before turning and going on with her day.

It was hours later, and she was looking for a couple of soldiers to sign some paperwork they hadn’t filled after a mission. Someone called her out and startled her so much that she had to do all she could to keep her sparkles in reign. Her power was a secret, a very well warded one at that. She had to be careful, because in the Fright Zone even the emptiest looking places had eyes and ears. She had known since she had started having her sparkles that it wouldn’t do her any good for Shadow Weaver, or worse, Hordak to know about them.

She looked around, searching for whoever it had been that had startled her so much that she had almost lost control and saw that archer was in a cell further along the corridor. He was looking right at her, frowning.

“What?” she demanded sharply.

There was something about him that made her uneasy, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. That made her even more nervous.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, as if he was in any position to demand things like that.

She frowned. “I’m not here for you.” She wanted to tell him that the world didn’t center on him and his princess friends, but it was understandable how he, having been prisoned and all, would think like that, so she kept her eyeroll and her words to herself.

“You’re not? Huh. Are you not here to get information for Catra?” His tone reflected how smart he thought he was, which was irritating. That was something Glimmer hated about the princesses, they always thought they knew everything, but none of them really knew how the Horde worked.

She rolled her eyes. “If Catra wants something, she can do it herself, I’m not her secretary.” Glimmer didn’t stay for any longer. She went on with her task, walked away in the direction she had been going and chewed up the people that she needed to chew up. She didn’t even think about archer-boy again until it was nighttime.

She was lying on her bunkbed, looking up at the ceiling and trying to sleep, but she couldn’t shake off the look that the boy had given her. She’d been in the same position for hours, and still, not a sliver of sleep. With a huff, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t let herself think too much about it, she just jumped to the floor and started walking towards the cells.

When she got there, she saw that the boy was not alone. Kyle, from Catra’s squadron, was there, talking and talking to a bored-looking archer-guy. Glimmer frowned.

“Leave” she said when he reached the cell.

Kyle jumped out of his body, startled, and then nodded quickly and left in a rush. It wouldn’t do him any good if she told anyone that he had been there, just like it would do her no good if he said it had been her who had chased him off. She doubted he would talk at all, though, so she didn’t worry about it.

The boy was looking at her with a frown, like he was trying to figure something out. She crossed her arms, feeling judged.

“What’s your name?” she asked, although her tone was more demanding than curious.

He looked surprised by her question. “Bow,” he answered. It was like he had expected her to know his name, which only proved how egocentric he really was. As if she was expecting to know the name of everyone who was a part of the Rebellion. Nah. She knew some names from paperwork, big generals, mainly. But she didn’t know him. Well, she knew about him, about his dexterity with the bow and his alliance with She-Ra and with the princesses. There wasn’t much more to know, as far as she was concerned.

She hummed in answer. Ridiculous name, Bow, for someone who was an archer. Although, she thought, it could be argued that it would be more stupid for someone who _wasn’t_ an archer. She didn’t comment on it, though, as it would have broken the air of seriousness she had managed to make the atmosphere into, and she didn’t want that to happen.

“Why were you looking at me?” she demanded next.

He frowned, confused again. “What?”

“When they brought you to the Fright Zone, you were looking at me. Why.” She’d been told she didn’t look too menacing, but she was trying her hardest. If her oh-so-secret power had been different, maybe it would have been useful for scaring him, but sparkles weren’t that threatening either, so she didn’t think that was going to do any good either.

The boy, Bow, only frowned deeper.

“Why,” she repeated. Her tone had become so hard that it didn’t sound like a question anymore.

“I don’t know.” He lifts his chin in a show of bravado that she hadn’t expected. It didn’t surprise her either, a soldier doesn’t show weaknesses in front of his enemy, even less if said enemy has you captured.

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know.” He squinted his eyes at her. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t like being stared at.”

Bow had started to smile. “That’s not it.” He crossed his arms over his chest and rested his back against the wall. He even closed his eyes. “I think you’re looking too much into it, though. I looked at you because you were there.”

There was something more, Glimmer knows it. There had to be more.

“What’s your name?” Bow asked.

She knew she didn’t have to give him anything. It was her who had the advantage there, and she didn’t owe him any piece of information. But there was not much that he could do with her name, so after a few seconds, she answered him: “Glimmer.”

He hummed and opened his eyes again to look at her. There was something there than unnerved her, just like when he had been staring at her before. “Weird name for a Horde soldier, isn’t it?”

“We have very different names,” she told him.

“Sure.” He shrugged, even though he knew nothing about Horde names. “But Glimmer… It doesn’t sound like something they would call a baby around here.”

“And what is a Horde name? Please enlighten me.”

He looked at her in silence for a few seconds and then shrugged. “Pretty much anything else.” She didn’t answer, at least out loud. She did roll her eyes. Princesses and princesses-allies always thinking they knew everything. “You know what does Glimmer sound like, though? That’s a princess name.”

Caught in surprise, Glimmer laughed out loud. A princess name. Her name, a princess name. “Did they hit you in the head or something?” she asked, all pretense of seriousness dropped.

“Yeah.” The boy didn’t look troubled by her laugh, he seemed even encouraged. “You don’t look a lot like a Horde soldier either,” he added, like he hadn’t said enough ridiculous things.

Glimmer had to admit that she was amused. “And what do I look like?” She pointed at her red and white t-shirt and her dark grey pants, the usual Horde uniform. She couldn’t look more like she belonged at the Horde.

“You’re not gonna like the answer.” She rolled her eyes and raised her eyebrows. “You look like a princess.”

She laughed again.

“Your hair sparkles.”

“It doesn’t. It’s shiny. I have good hair.”

He looked at her like she was delusional, and she just frowned up at him. “It doesn’t sparkle.”

“Okay.” His answer only made her get angrier, more frustrated.

She huffed and started walking away.

She did hear his mocking voice as he said, “I haven’t offended you, have I?”

She didn’t turn around, but rather started walking faster. She had… well, let’s just say that he had a point, but not in the sense he thought he did. Shooting sparkles out of your fingertips wasn’t exactly normal in Horde standards. She was very well aware of that.

She went back to bed and lied there, awake, until it was morning and a new day was starting.

“You look horrible,” Octavia said, as tactless as she always was.

“Thanks.”

And her day was just like every day those last few months: training and doing paperwork for the higherups. It was boring and Glimmer had been falling asleep and startling awake on her desk for the last four hours. She couldn’t keep her mind away from what the guy had said the night before. Names weren’t exactly similar at the Fright Zone, there weren’t multiple Catras, or Kyles, or even Rogelios. It wasn’t that weird that Glimmer had a unique name, really. But she was… brighter, she guessed, than other cadets. She had been a softer kid, too, only toughing up because of necessity. However, that didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t anyone special, and she didn’t have any _real_ reasons to think she was. Plus, there was no way she had anything to do with the princesses. No way.

That didn’t stop her from walking to the guy’s cell again by lunchtime.

“Back again.”

“Yes.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“You stood out,” he finally said, breaking the silence. Glimmer hummed inquisitively. “That’s why I looked at you. You stand out in here. And when I saw you… There’s something in you that looks familiar, but I can’t say why.”

“Why would I look familiar?” Glimmer was horrified.

Bow shrugged, looking exasperated. “I don’t know! I was trying to figure it out!”

“And…” she frowned and sat with her back to the green screen. It was a hologram, but it functioned as a wall, which meant it supported her weight. “What do you think it is?”

“Are you having doubts, cadet Glimmer?”

She was glad that she had her back to him, because she grimaced at the title.

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. You’re here with the Horde, right? So it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re showing the truth about your soul by being here.”

She sighed. How simplistic of him. It didn’t surprise her, exactly, but she couldn’t deny that the feeling in the center of her chest was disappointment.

“So you only accept dumb blondes?”

He scoffed and she smirked at the sound.

“Anyways, it’s easy to say that you wouldn’t be here. You’ve got people waiting for you at Bright Moon, don’t you?” She looked back at him for a moment before she turned back to her position. “When you have no one, you don’t have a lot of options.”

“Adora left.”

“To be with you.”

“I don’t—”

“Look, _Bow_ … You’re right. It doesn’t matter who I am.”

She stood up and, again, left.

She did notice, however, that the guy in the cell actually looked kind of sad. She had probably read him wrong, though, because he had no reason to feel bad for her, even less when the situation was like that— he was a prisoner from the Horde and she was a Horde soldier, if anyone deserved pity, it was him and his flowery friend.

That thought made her hesitate on her next step. The flower princess. She didn’t know where Catra was keeping her, or why she and Bow were in different places but… With a sigh, she found Octavia and asked her.

“I couldn’t tell you,” she answered with a shrug. “If she’s not with the other princess, I can’t imagine what Catra will have done with her.” She seemed so unbothered that a shiver went through Glimmer’s spine. Surely, she wouldn’t have…

When she asked Kyle, he brightened and nodded quickly. Then, he hesitated. “I’m not… going to get into trouble if I tell you, right?” Everything about the kid screamed that he shouldn’t be at the Horde. Glimmer felt sorry for him, she wondered how out of place he felt.

“I won’t tell anyone you did,” she promised rolling her eyes. She wouldn’t, but that didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t know, Kyle should have known that that.

When she went to the girl’s cell, she found her with her arms curled around her legs. As soon as she saw Glimmer, she jumped to stand up and put her arms in her hips. She looked more like an angry mother than anything else, and it would have been comical if the situation had been different.

“What’s your name?” Glimmer asked when she got to her.

“Why do you want to know.”

“Because thinking of you as flower girl isn’t very nice.” Her tone was mocking, but there was a slice of truth in her words. Plus, not knowing her name left her at a point of disadvantage, of sorts.

The girl frowned at her. She seemed to be hesitant, and Glimmer couldn’t help but be annoyed at her. She was already a prisoner, giving Glimmer her name wasn’t going to make things worse for her.

“Perfuma,” she ended up saying.

Glimmer could see how her name fit her, so she simply nodded. It was infinitely better than ‘Bow’. “Do—”

“Where do you have Bow?” the girl, Perfuma, interrupted her in a demanding tone.

Glimmer blinked at her for a moment, surprised at her interruption. She rolled her eyes. “He’s at another cell, perfectly fine.”

“Why are you doing this? Let us go!”

“Oh, I’m not doing anything,” Glimmer clarified. “This is all Catra. I have —or want— nothing to do with this.”

Perfuma frowned at her words. “Then why are you here.”

“I don’t even know, really. Your friend is very annoying.”

“He’s not!” The fact that she had felt the need to be indignant at Glimmer’s words only made both of them seem even more annoying.

“He is, though. I look like a Horde soldier, don’t I? Like. I don’t even know what’s his deal.” She groaned.

That threw the princess off. “W-What?”

“See? That’s how I felt. I’m very Hordey. The Hordiest. Well, maybe that’s Octavia. I don’t know. But I do _not_ look like a princess.”

Perfuma’s offended gasp was enough to assure her.

“Thank you.”

And she left.

Bow had to be planning something. It made no sense that he would say all that stuff if it wasn’t because he was planning to do something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t like Glimmer could do much for them anyways, so she didn’t understand why he was even bothering.

“Let us out!” she heard Perfuma say as she walked away.

She didn’t bother to turn around. She could not do that, of course. She didn’t know why Catra had snatched them, but it wasn’t her business, really.

No matter she had convinced herself that she was not going to go back to Bow’s cell, the next day she was walking down the corridor of his cell with a frown. Her frown deepened when she saw that he was no longer there. There were signs of a scuffle, the most telling of all was Kyle lying unconscious in the floor. She rolled her eyes and shook him, but he didn’t react. Using the boy’s watch, she signaled and emergency, and then she walked slowly around the corridor. A group of princesses, leaded by She-Ra, who looked undoubtedly like a blonder, dumber version of Adora, were trying to open one of the doors that led outside.

Bow happened to look back and saw her. He frowned at her and stared with the same intensity than he had a couple of days before. She sighed, annoyed, and shook her head before she sighed again.

“Oh, how bad of the princesses to catch me and force me to open the door for them,” she said dramatically as she walked towards the group. Her demeanor was bored, however her skin was prickling with adrenaline.

She didn’t recognize all of them, but she did notice how they instantly adopted a fighting stance. Bow, though, didn’t move, he was still frowning up at her.

“How un-princessy of you, to make a poor, innocent soul like me do the dirty work for them,” she continued.

“What are you—” The dark-skinned woman shut up when Glimmer walked past her to get to the door.

“Pardon me,” she said as she gently pushed the purple haired one away. She could feel all their eyes on her back.

“Glimmer—”

“Oh, mighty She-Ra, who is definitely not the dumb blonde that left the Horde, maybe shut up and let me get you guys out of here?”

Adora, or She-Ra, however Glimmer was supposed to refer to her, looked as shocked as she had ever seen her. The other princesses too. Bow looked a little bit less shocked, which made Glimmer kind of want to not open the door for them. She repressed that feeling as she started to punch in the correct set of codes.

“Why are you doing this?” Bow asked.

“You did not get into my head,” she answered, sure of herself. And, truly, he hadn’t. She was Horde Scum, not a princess. There was nothing in her existence related to princesses except her duty to off them. And there she was. She rolled her eyes. “I’m do this to get back at Catra for pushing her paperwork on me.”

Adora snorted and smiled dumbly. “Yeah, she does that.”

Glimmer gave her a look. “Don’t talk as if you didn’t do the same.”

She smiled guiltily.

The door opened around the same time they heard steps around the corner. “Go. I’ll see if I can get them off your trail,” she told the princesses. Bow, instead, grabbed her hand. “What do you not understand about ‘go’?”

He rolled her eyes. “Thank you,” he said. They looked back at the corner, where the steps were getting louder. On the other side of the door, the rest of the princesses looked as ready to go as Bow should have been. “I’ll be waiting at Bright Moon. There’s your option.”

She stared at him for a moment and pursed her lips, reminded about their conversation a few days ago. “Very good. Now. Go.”

And, with that, Bow walked through the door and he and the princesses left. Glimmer managed to confuse the cadets that had been looking for them enough that they didn’t know where they were until they had left the Fright Zone for good.

Days later, Glimmer is trying to sleep, but she can’t stop thinking about Bow’s words. She takes a deep breath and gets up from her bunk. She starts packing her clothes.

**Author's Note:**

> So. Like. The thing about this is that I imagine Shadow Weaver kidnapping Glimmer or when she was really young to make her into a Horde Soldier. She did this hoping that she'd be a good magician like Micah or something, but then discovered that the kid didn't show any magical inclinations (Glimmer developes her magic later in life in this fic, when she's able to hide it). That's why she doesn't treat Glimmer differently, like she does with Adora. So, basically, Glimmer is still a princess in this, still Angella's and Micah's daughter, she just doesn't know it. Bow doesn't exactly know who she is, but there's something about her that screams princess (have you seen her?) and she's kinda familiar (i mean she looks like micah sooooo). And yeah. She goes with The Rebellion and when they see her powers (not immideatelly, because she's still unsure and, you know, not having had the best childhood at the horde) they realize who she is and well, they work with it, idk.
> 
> I like this prompt and I own headcannons and stuff, so I might write something else in this universe, although, not right now.
> 
> (( also, that last present tense is intentional ))
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr!](https://persephx.tumblr.com/)


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